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Lecture 21: Whatever You Say, Say ...

2.
Quick notes from Culler
● “Literariness” also occurs outside literature (19-20).
● “Literature” is a contemporary historical category, and
one that has varied a great deal over the last two
hundred years. (22-23)
● Nevertheless, we tend to take some texts as
supporting the move of “treating them as literature.”
(23-26)
● Literature is thus both language organized in
particular ways and a set of conventions that
produces a certain kind of attention.

3.
Several approaches to “what is literature?”:
1. Literature is the foregrounding of language. (29-
30)
2. Literature is the integration of language. (30-31)
3. Literature is fiction (or as language with certain
special deictic properties). (31-33)
4. Literature is an aesthetic object. (33-34)
5. Literature is an intertextual and self-reflexive
construct. (34-36)

4.
Several approaches to “what is literature for?”:
1. It is civilizing. (36)
2. It is universalizing. (37)
3. It is nationalizing. (37-38)
4. It is the vehicle for ideology, and/or the
opportunity to undo ideology. (38-39)
5. It is cultural capital. (41)

6.
Media credits
The photo of Grauballe Man (slide 5) has
been released into the public domain by
Sven Rosborn. Original source:
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Cate
gory:Grauballemanden#/media/File:Grau
ballemannen1.jpg